This World Is Not Your Home

I love airports. People are greeting one another. There are glad reunions, and at the drop-off people are headed to all corners of the world. There is excitement about that. You have probably been in an airport. Maybe in Minneapolis you are waiting to catch a flight. It is ten below outside, seventy degrees inside, and you see a guy in a Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and black socks up to his knees, and think, “What in the world?” He is not dressed for Minneapolis. He is dressed for Oahu. He is going somewhere else. He is just on his way through. He is a stranger.

I Peter is addressed to strangers, travelers, or sojourners. It is talking about those of us who have placed their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. This world is not our home. We are just passing through. We ought not be disturbed when things are different in our lives. I Peter 1 says, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout…” Then he gives the regions where the believers were found. “Scattered” is the word diaspora. You scatter seed to the wind and the Jewish people knew what that was. Here are people, Jew and Gentile, who were scattered abroad as believers.

Verse 17 says we are to pass the time of our sojourning in reverence for God, a healthy fear of the Father. Verse 13 says, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.” In Bible times people essentially wore clothes that were like bathrobes. If someone was in active pursuit, they would roll up their robe and fasten it around their waist so they could more easily do the work at hand. “Gird up the loins of your mind” is talking about getting ready to think. “Be sober.” He doesn’t mean as opposed to drunk. He means as opposed to murky thinking. There should be clear thinking with a clear mind. It finishes, “And hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So, this world is not our home.

C.S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” That is exactly the case. If we belong to Christ, we should think differently. Gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober. Be clear thinking. Westerners have naively and optimistically thought that other countries with strong ideologies that are opposite to those of the American experiment want the same things we want. We think that they all want freedom and liberty. That may not be the case. Not everyone thinks the same. So, we need to be aware that if we think a little differently, it is because our destination is different. That is quite all right, and we need to share the love of Christ today to bring as many with us as we possibly can.

Today, I read a news story about a thirteen-year-old in Flagstaff, Arizona who was going the wrong way on I-40 and at times over 100 miles per hour. She crashed and flipped the vehicle. There was at least one eleven-year-old passenger. They survived, but I believe the thirteen-year-old driver had a blood alcohol twice the legal limit even for an adult. Who in their right mind would drive a truck in the wrong direction at 100 miles an hour on I-40? The answer is that she wasn’t in her right mind. She was drunk.

When the Bible says we are to be clear-minded or sober, it is not talking about being free from the effects of alcohol necessarily, but about being clear-minded. The two do go together. We are to be filled with the Spirit and not filled with spirits. We are not to be controlled by an excess of wine, but by the Holy Spirit of God. Why just a little of either, either of God Almighty or alcohol? They are, I believe, in conflict one with another. One produces clear thinking; one produces the kind of thinking that led to that horrible accident in Flagstaff. We should think differently.

We should also hope differently. We are to “be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Verse 3 speaks of a “lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Verse 7 says, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth.” Gold is not eternal, and gold is purified by heat. The dross rises to the top. So, this is more precious than gold “though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” There is coming a time when Christ will appear.

Verse 13 says, “Hope to the end.” This is the third book in a row that talks about the end. Hebrews 13:7 says we are to follow the faith of godly people “considering the end of their conversation.” That is considering the results of the way they lived. James likewise talks about the end. It says we are to consider the end of the Lord, that He has pity on us and is of tender mercy. I Peter 1:13 says we are to “hope to the end for the grace [enabling] that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So, what about you? Do you find yourself totally at home in this world when you belong to heaven? If you do, then something is not quite right in your thinking and the things for which you are hoping. If your hope is merely found in this weekend, vacation, retirement, or that grand thing that will happen at some point, then you are missing something. We should enjoy this world God has given us to enjoy, but I enjoy this life more because I know this life is not all there is. If you have never trusted in Jesus as Savior, the only thing that can give you hope and clear thinking the way the Bible is talking about and that God has designed you for is to know His Son, the Lord Jesus. The Bible says that we know God because we know Jesus. That is, we believe and have hope in God because of the Son He has sent. This world is not your home. You should think differently, hope differently, and live differently.